Ancient Greek theater By: Kelly Buck
Imagine being back in Greece 1,500 years ago. The Greek drama was just heating up to become a big aspect in Greek culture. There were three famous play wrights who created costumes for their actors, they performed in a theater and influenced the type of entertainment we have today.
From the 5th century BC we know of three famous Greek play wrights who have written well known tragedies. Of the three Aeschylus was the first; he lived from 525-456 B.C. (Trumbrull). He was famous for creating plays involving two people on the stage at the same time! Then there’s another famous play write named Euripides, known mostly to write plays that portrayed the feelings of Greek women and slaves. Many people called him the,” father of the modern psychological tragedy.”(Gradesaver.com). Probably the most famous of the three is Sophocles. He was able to incorporate a third actor into his plays and he was very well known for his personality! (White). He lived a long successful life, usually winning first place for his creative theater productions! These three men were the originators of theater as we know it today!
There were usually two different genres of plays written to be entered in contests; they honored the god of theater, Dionysus. The three famous men, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles (as mentioned earlier) were famous for writing plays in a genre called, “Tragedy.” “They are known to be based on Greek myths and involved a down fall of a hero and/or a lofty protagonist.” It was very popular to see the main character having made decisions that came with heavy consequences from the Greek gods, the main focus of tragedy is to show that humankind is able to choose certain decisions that might or might not come back to haunt them later! The idea is very similar to our beliefs of “Karma” today. The genre “Comedy” is very different and had no meaning other than to entertain its audience. One of the most well known play wrights for comedy was, “Aristophanes”. He was very popular, and was known to have themes that involved the character being presented with unreal tasks, but being able to complete them! Like today, their comedy involved, “rude jokes, mocking individuals and institutions” plus other inappropriate things we also find hilarious. (Sacks pg. 241).
Women were hardly allowed to take part in plays! Since men were responsible for creating them, they chose only male actors. Lucky for them, they had to dress up and act like the women for the play! They made special masks to define which character they would play a, female, male, and even if you were rich or poor. They wore special pieces of clothing that helped them to look more like a convincing woman. Even though the masks were part of the costumes they were designed to be simple and not to draw attention away from the actors. The masks that represented a female were usually much lighter than the mask of a man. This made it easy for the audience to distinguish between who was who. They also helped to project the actor’s voices so everyone could hear since the theater was so big! The clothing was dyed in distinct colors so the audience would be able identify which character they were representing! For their feet, they wore boots. With those few props they were fully covered other than their hands, they believed that if no one could see their faces then that was the only way for them to respectfully act as their gods. (Adil). The characters were often accompanied by a chorus. The chorus was responsible for telling the audience the “back ground information”. Similar to when you watch a movie and the director is the narrator who gives you the commentary! It is said that there were at least 50 people in the chorus, but that number got reduced to 12. Sophocles decided that he wanted to add three more, so the final amount was 15! The play wrights created names for the choruses depending on what genre they were involved in, for tragedy the chorus was called, “Emmelia” and in comedy, “Codrax”. (Phillips). The chorus was made up of males and was valued more when used in the plays of comedy. In plays of tragedy, the role of the chorus was reduced and eventually cut out all together! (Sack pg. 242).
The theater or stage is where the actors and chorus would perform! The whole thing looks somewhat like a funnel, its shape is perfect for catching the sound of the actor’s voices. (Pearson). There are four main parts of the theater. The first is the, “Orchestra” where everyone would act, dance, and sing! It is basically a circular shaped stage that was first made just using the ground; later on it was popular to have marble as the Orchestra instead. The “Theatron” was the seating area for the audience! It wasn’t that comfortable to on, so people usually brought pillows or other soft things to sit on. The seats looked like stairs that would elevate up onto a hillside, it gives great angles of the Orchestra. There is also a, “Skene” or a tent that was used as a prop. It had doorways that allowed the actors to go in and out of it! They were also able to go on top of it and act from there usually when they were trying to reenact a god or someone of great importance. The last part of the theater is called the, “Parados” which means passage ways. The actors and chorus used them to show exits and entryways. Or say if a character arrives home from a long journey, he would come through the Parados.
Diagram of a Greek theater.
All of the entertainment like movies, shows, and other plays today all originated from the Greeks. (Sexton). There are still plays that have survived throughout all the years from the Greek’s time and some of them are still performed today. During the war between Rome and Greece, the Romans conquer the Greeks. The Romans changed theater to be more violent and cruel. They actually made the actors, which were usually slaves, fight until one was dead; it was very entertaining to them. Later, the church believed that entertainment wasn’t important, they wanted everybody to study religion instead. Therefore theater was banned for a while, until the church realized that it was very useful when acting out scripture from the Bible! People who spoke different languages were able to learn by watching instead of listening because they couldn’t interpret. The church finally allowed theater to be performed again, only if it was to teach about religion. Later, theater expanded to Spain, Italy and France where people there would create plays about religion and also history. (Graf). Without the Greek’s plays, our forms of entertainment might be very different.
Greek theater was a major part of Greek culture. It also influenced what type of entertainment that we have today. Because of what Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, created, the chorus, costumes, places to perform and two genres, comedy and tragedy, we have expanded on them and created our own today. Works Cited:
Bloom, Harold. Greek Drama. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. Print.
Hadas, Moses. Greek Drama. New York: Bantam, 1982. Print.
Pearson, Anne. Ancient Greece. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.
Sacks, David, Oswyn Murray, and Margaret Bunson. Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World.
New York: Facts on File, 1995. Print.
Ancient Greek theater
By: Kelly Buck
Imagine being back in Greece 1,500 years ago. The Greek drama was just heating up to become a big aspect in Greek culture. There were three famous play wrights who created costumes for their actors, they performed in a theater and influenced the type of entertainment we have today.
From the 5th century BC we know of three famous Greek play wrights who have written well known tragedies. Of the three Aeschylus was the first; he lived from 525-456 B.C. (Trumbrull). He was famous for creating plays involving two people on the stage at the same time! Then there’s another famous play write named Euripides, known mostly to write plays that portrayed the feelings of Greek women and slaves. Many people called him the,” father of the modern psychological tragedy.”(Gradesaver.com). Probably the most famous of the three is Sophocles. He was able to incorporate a third actor into his plays and he was very well known for his personality! (White). He lived a long successful life, usually winning first place for his creative theater productions! These three men were the originators of theater as we know it today!
There were usually two different genres of plays written to be entered in contests; they honored the god of theater, Dionysus. The three famous men, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles (as mentioned earlier) were famous for writing plays in a genre called, “Tragedy.” “They are known to be based on Greek myths and involved a down fall of a hero and/or a lofty protagonist.” It was very popular to see the main character having made decisions that came with heavy consequences from the Greek gods, the main focus of tragedy is to show that humankind is able to choose certain decisions that might or might not come back to haunt them later! The idea is very similar to our beliefs of “Karma” today. The genre “Comedy” is very different and had no meaning other than to entertain its audience. One of the most well known play wrights for comedy was, “Aristophanes”. He was very popular, and was known to have themes that involved the character being presented with unreal tasks, but being able to complete them! Like today, their comedy involved, “rude jokes, mocking individuals and institutions” plus other inappropriate things we also find hilarious. (Sacks pg. 241).
Women were hardly allowed to take part in plays! Since men were responsible for creating them, they chose only male actors. Lucky for them, they had to dress up and act like the women for the play! They made special masks to define which character they would play a, female, male, and even if you were rich or poor. They wore special pieces of clothing that helped them to look more like a convincing woman. Even though the masks were part of the costumes they were designed to be simple and not to draw attention away from the actors. The masks that represented a female were usually much lighter than the mask of a man. This made it easy for the audience to distinguish between who was who. They also helped to project the actor’s voices so everyone could hear since the theater was so big! The clothing was dyed in distinct colors so the audience would be able identify which character they were representing! For their feet, they wore boots. With those few props they were fully covered other than their hands, they believed that if no one could see their faces then that was the only way for them to respectfully act as their gods. (Adil). The characters were often accompanied by a chorus. The chorus was responsible for telling the audience the “back ground information”. Similar to when you watch a movie and the director is the narrator who gives you the commentary! It is said that there were at least 50 people in the chorus, but that number got reduced to 12. Sophocles decided that he wanted to add three more, so the final amount was 15! The play wrights created names for the choruses depending on what genre they were involved in, for tragedy the chorus was called, “Emmelia” and in comedy, “Codrax”. (Phillips). The chorus was made up of males and was valued more when used in the plays of comedy. In plays of tragedy, the role of the chorus was reduced and eventually cut out all together! (Sack pg. 242).
The theater or stage is where the actors and chorus would perform! The whole thing looks somewhat like a funnel, its shape is perfect for catching the sound of the actor’s voices. (Pearson). There are four main parts of the theater. The first is the, “Orchestra” where everyone would act, dance, and sing! It is basically a circular shaped stage that was first made just using the ground; later on it was popular to have marble as the Orchestra instead. The “Theatron” was the seating area for the audience! It wasn’t that comfortable to on, so people usually brought pillows or other soft things to sit on. The seats looked like stairs that would elevate up onto a hillside, it gives great angles of the Orchestra. There is also a, “Skene” or a tent that was used as a prop. It had doorways that allowed the actors to go in and out of it! They were also able to go on top of it and act from there usually when they were trying to reenact a god or someone of great importance. The last part of the theater is called the, “Parados” which means passage ways. The actors and chorus used them to show exits and entryways. Or say if a character arrives home from a long journey, he would come through the Parados.
All of the entertainment like movies, shows, and other plays today all originated from the Greeks. (Sexton). There are still plays that have survived throughout all the years from the Greek’s time and some of them are still performed today. During the war between Rome and Greece, the Romans conquer the Greeks. The Romans changed theater to be more violent and cruel. They actually made the actors, which were usually slaves, fight until one was dead; it was very entertaining to them. Later, the church believed that entertainment wasn’t important, they wanted everybody to study religion instead. Therefore theater was banned for a while, until the church realized that it was very useful when acting out scripture from the Bible! People who spoke different languages were able to learn by watching instead of listening because they couldn’t interpret. The church finally allowed theater to be performed again, only if it was to teach about religion. Later, theater expanded to Spain, Italy and France where people there would create plays about religion and also history. (Graf). Without the Greek’s plays, our forms of entertainment might be very different.
Greek theater was a major part of Greek culture. It also influenced what type of entertainment that we have today. Because of what Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, created, the chorus, costumes, places to perform and two genres, comedy and tragedy, we have expanded on them and created our own today.
Works Cited:
Bloom, Harold. Greek Drama. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. Print.
Hadas, Moses. Greek Drama. New York: Bantam, 1982. Print.
Pearson, Anne. Ancient Greece. New York: Knopf, 1992. Print.
Sacks, David, Oswyn Murray, and Margaret Bunson. Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World.
New York: Facts on File, 1995. Print.
Englert, Walter. "Greek Theater." Reed College. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.
<http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110tech/theater.html>.
White, David. "Greek Tragedy: The Invention of Drama." Social Studies for Kids. Dig, 2002. Web. 07 Dec.
2011. <http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/worldhistory/greektragedy.htm>.
Dr. Eric W. Trumbull. "Introduction to Theatre -- Ancient Greek Theatre." Nova Online Home Page. 1998.
Web. 07 Dec. 2011. <http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/ancientgreek.htm>.
"Biography of Euripides | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays | GradeSaver." Study Guides & Essay Editing | GradeSaver.
Grade Saver. Web. 09 Dec. 2011. <http://www.gradesaver.com/author/euripides/>.
Greek Theatre - Ancient Greece." Ancient Greece - History, Mythology, Art, War, Culture, Society, and Architecture.
Web. 09 Dec. 2011. <http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Theatre/>.
Adil, Janeen R. "Backstage at the Theater." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. EBSCO.
Web. 10 Dec. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4>.
Sexton, Timothy. "About Greek Theater | EHow.com." EHow | How to Videos, Articles & More - Discover
the Expert in You. | EHow.com. Web. 11 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.ehow.com/about_4744693_greek-theater.html>.
Graf, Christine. "Acting through the Ages." EBSCO Publishing Service Selection Page. EBSCO.
Web. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=9>.